“Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.”

-Bruce Lee

When I read this quote at my Vistage Key Executive meeting this month, we had a lively conversation about “what does it mean to be like water?” Here is what we came up with.

Water is infinitely adaptable, when it encounters a boulder, a rock or a dam, it moves around it. Water takes different forms, sometimes, hard and solid, like ice, sometimes fluid, sometimes cold, sometimes warm, sometimes boiling.

If we as humans can be like water, we will know when to simply move around the boulder and find another path; when to be fluid and when to hold firm; when to accept and when to respond; when to boil and when to be warm. In short, be like water and adapt to what life presents us with.

Water can also be a destructive force and if not paid attention to can cause all kinds of damage. So if we are going to do all this moving around and adapting to all situations, we need to recognize that there has to be some care involved in our decisions.